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Glock26Toter

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I went on a short vacation down to the Fort Myers Florida area this weekend.  My wife and I met some friends who just moved down there and had a relaxing time with them.

 

I took my buddy to a local match just North of Fort Myers at the Hansen Range with the Fort Myers Practical Shooting Association.  I ran into a couple of people that I shot Nationals with so it was a nice surprise for all of us.  

They put on a heck of tough match down there with some 25-35 yard partial shots and a couple of swingers that were only visible through a window as wide as the swinger. 

With all classic targets and those tough shots I racked up 14 deltas and a couple of mikes.  In the end, so did the top competitors that showed up that day and I wound up winning the match.

 

While shooting I concentrated on my goals of aggressive transitions and calling shots.  While 14 deltas was quite a bummer, the good news is that in most cases I was successful at getting good hits on some far targets plus kept a pretty consistent game going for all 5 stages.  

There were a few moments of point shooting on wide open and then transitioning to a far mini popper where I was able to vary the shooting engagement appropriately.  This has been a weak spot for a long time.

 

Overall, I felt like I made progress and that felt good. 

 

Areas for improvement.. more consistency is needed.  I still managed to get hung up on a couple of steel targets and knew darn well I had a some deltas and mikes.  However, I called them and just moved on.  Obviously contradictory to my goal set.

 

Goals:

CALL THE SHOT, and be done.

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive transitions.

 

 

 

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One again, we had a great weekend here in Colorado and I was able to shoot a match in Boulder.  

 

Continuing work on my goals I shot a relatively clean match with only 4 deltas and felt like my transitions were aggressive.  Every time I moved, I pushed hard and on most stages posted the fastest time.  There was one marathon stage that I kind of got tangled up on getting into position and in 1 port felt like I got stuck.  I still thought I posted a good time, but found out that some other shooters had beat my time by over 2 seconds.  I'm not actually sure if that movement is responsible and I would like to know how they ran that to see if I missed something in the stage plan.  I suspect I know where it was, but it would be nice to know.

 

Well, from the standpoint of finding areas for improvement there were plenty.

I zeroed the classifier with a 2-mike/no shoot routine that was downright embarrassing.  While the time would have led to a GM score I was clearly not capable of maintaining shot quality at that speed.  Definitely a lapse in my goal progress.  I would rather have posted a much slower time with good hits given my goals are all about shooting more accurately and confidently right now.

 

Another thing that I need to improve is my rhythm in the fast hosing.  Several times recently I've been unable to get the crazy fast split times that I should be getting on some of the close point shooting.  Targets in wide open ports that are a few feet away have no business getting a .19-.20 split time.  I don't do it every time, but in a given stage that might have 10 opportunities for this, I may get held up on 1 or 2 of them.  Albeit a small area to worry about I can't deny the fact that another shooter not experiencing this problem can take a stage win based on that.  Not to mention the cascade effect.  This causes a loss in rhythm and worse yet, can cause an uncalled miss or a "go back and get it" routine that can wreck the run.  It's important to be able to make it through a hoser engagement without getting snagged on any of the targets.  

 

The last area for improvement?  Stage planning.  I missed a huge gamer opportunity on one of the stages. Luckily, someone went ahead of me that didn't.  I was able to see my mistake and get it corrected before my run.  This was simply a start position that I took to mean a much more restrictive body position than it did.  This, along with the obvious miss for a better plan on the marathon stage makes me question my stage planning.  I need to iron these out and reach a point where I'm confident that I've optimized every movement for my best run.  I'm not so worried about doing the same plan as everyone else, but some things are just obvious time wasters and those are the kinds of things I'm still missing. 

 

Goals:

CALL THE SHOT, and be done.

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive and wide transitions.

Optimize each position and movement in your stage plan. 

 

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Another lucky weekend of nice weather resulted in me shooting two matches this weekend.  The first was at Ben Lomond gun club with some wide spread stages with symmetry being the word of the day.  

While not exactly symmetrical all the stages had a personality of making left-right-left type of decisions with very close to the same number of shots each way.  It was an awesome challenge for stage planning and caused many discussions throughout our squad on whether to go left or right. 

I didn't get any video because I've been lazy about it lately.  I did, however feel very good about my goal progress.  While I obviously made some mistakes they were small in nature.  Previously they have felt more like relapses and now they are feeling more like mistakes.  Most of them are accuracy related.  Still too many deltas and I'm getting way better at being confident in my shot calling.  However in several instances I called the shot "slowly."  Meaning that I know darn well I saw that dot way off to the edge and went ahead and broke, then instantly transitioned away.  While this is a successful "shot call" it's definitely NOT successful from a quality standpoint.  (these are often deltas, and at best, charlies.)  I'm not sure how to articulate this, but I'm trying to say... it's really not a shot call if you are already gone by the time you realize what you called. This is, I believe a by product of trying to be more confident with the call, and especially with the confidence in aggressive transitioning.  Now, I just need to be confident and call the shot while the dot is in the darn A-Zone!

Also, with all but one, my stage planning was solid.  It was one of those things where I kept looking at a plan that was backwards from the way everyone else was doing it.  But alas, in an effort to keep the squad moving I gave up and planned to run it like everyone else.  Well, another shooter had figured out the backwards path and it was remarkably shorter.  Once I saw it, I easily adapted to it and ran it successfully.  I had the information and could see a couple of key arrays that I just knew could be optimized better.  Too bad I was unable to get there and next time I need to ensure that I've really looked at those optimizations and eliminate positions when possible. 

 

The next match was at Weld County and the weather was even better than the day before.  

I remembered to take my camera and got vids of all the runs, only to delete them later by accident and not get to review them.  I'm so pissed about it.  That Gopro lost it's date setting a while back.  When I went to start processing the videos there were a bunch from 1/28 and 3 videos from 2/19.  Well, I was just going to clear the old ones out and then copy all from the card to my PC.  After I hit OK I realized that the dates were 1/28/17 and 2/19/16.  DAMN IT.   Next time I'm going to set the date-time in the GoPro to avoid that shit... oh, or better yet don't delete a bunch of shit until AFTER you make the copy.  *dumbass*

 

Well, anyways, the match was a challenging one and I was very happy with slight improvement on my goals.  My delta count was only 3 for this match.  Unfortunately my mike count was 1... but again.  A small mistake rather than a full on relapse is a net positive. 

The mike was on a stage where I went a tad too aggressively into a position and misjudged the fault line.  I stumbled over it and had to get back in.  That sent my shooting platform and concentration off enough to mike a head/shoulders array.  The plan, for that stage was another point of much discussion.  It was a "go forward" or "stay back" scenario.  After reviewing both plans I decided that the time gained would be a wash and the risk for staying back was really high.  Trading 2 awkward positions and far shots for 1 awkward position with a high probability for all alphas seemed like a logical choice for me.  Of course that was providing I could haul ass and not give up extra time during the movement.  It was a success from the planning perspective so despite the mike, I'm sticking this in the positive column.

On another stage in the positive column was appropriately called "no rush."  There was an obvious advantage to running a smooth, plan with all targets taken in exactly the way the were presented to you.  This meant a 30 round run and most open shooters max out at 30.  Talk about a risk vs reward decision from hell.  Since I can run with 31 I had one whole spare bullet for 30 on the move shots.  This was a really fun stage as I very carefully called my shots and moved as smoothly as possible knowing damn well that I really didn't have any room to spare.  Without any other open GM's I can't really quantify that run, but it felt good and I feel like it was a successful run that was up to snuff against just about anyone. 

The remaining stages were fairly standard.  Some decent shooting and moving interspersed with a healthy dose of screw-ups.  Most of which are just more work needed on the same goal set I've been working on.  

 

for now, I'll leave the goal set the same. But try to emphasize shot quality.

Wait for the shot you want. Call it, and be done.

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive and wide transitions.

Optimize each position and movement in your stage plan. 

 

 

 

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This weekend I received my new Deltapoint Pro sight.  Only one, since Everglades Ammo was out of stock like the rest of the world.  I put the one that did come in on the green gun and used the Everglades mount.  After dealing with the racker being in the way by sliding it slightly to the right I was ready to rumble.

I headed out to the range to sight it in.  With very little handling it was easy to see that the racker is likely going to get removed entirely from this setup and I'll just rack the slide like a normal person now.  With the Everglades mount the current position of the racker is a pinch point.  I pinched myself in dryfire so I imagine in ramped up Hulk rage mode I'm likely to lop off a pinky.  

So then I did something stupid.  I'm like, how far off can this be?  I'll chrono (unrelated to the sight... I just needed to chrono since switching primers.) and get the old 10 yard sight in done in one shot.   Moments later, all I could do was hang my head like a freaking moron as shattered chrono parts hung from the tripod in front of me.

Well, after a short review the damage wasn't that bad and with some packing tape I was able to get the chrono back in business.  

So, yeah, they can start off about 12" low/right at 10 yards, or exactly at the connecting point of your chrono rod at 10'.  However you want to look at it, the sight required quite a bit of adjustment.  

It was very finicky and took about 75 rounds before it was zeroed exactly like I wanted.  I'm shooting the bottom of a 1" square at 10 yards.  The top portion at 15, and about 2.5" high at 25 yards.  Hopefully this thing stays put.  

With all that sighting in, and about an hour of time on Saturday to do it, I hadn't had much time to really think about the tracking.  That would have to wait for Sunday night.

 

Sunday night was a match at Centennial Gun Club.  It was a particularly good one with some nice aiming coupled with a good old fashioned hoser stage.  The only vid I got was this one.  The first run with my DPP setup.  I was disappointed at how crappy the dot looked to me at low intensities.  I actually believe this is my eyesight and not the dot.  I just can't clearly see something that small and bright.  With the giant C-More dot it was fuzzy too but had decided center point to it.  The DPP was like that outdoors, but indoors it lost that hard center definition and is just a tightly packed asterisk.  

Once I started shooting I found it easy to put the asterisk on the alpha zone and watch it track in a consistent up and down path without leaving the glass.  The gun just seems more sleek and centered as it's running.  I really like this so far.  I can't wait to get it outside in match conditions.   

From a shooting perspective it was definitely the usual 80% match.  My transitions were decent but I felt like I lingered a bit while analyzing the new sight experience, and on some it was obvious, even to spectators.  The movement was also hesitant from the crappy footing.  I still had a couple of decent runs and only netted 3 deltas.  2 on some swingers that were running at Mach 2, and another one on that stage somewhere but can't remember where.  I shot clean otherwise so not a bad showing for the first match with a new sight platform.

 

Wait for the shot you want. Call it, and be done.  (this is going to take some rework)

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive and wide transitions.

Optimize each position and movement in your stage plan.

  

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I picked up my other gun from the gunsmith, and he mounted my 2nd Deltapoint Pro sight on it.  There was an issue, on both guns with the racker not clearing the Everglades mount so he machined off the side of the mount so it was flush with the side of the DPP rather than sticking out a bit.  That, coupled with sliding the racker over just touch, makes the clearance enough that if I leave my pinky in there when manipulating the racker it won't get pinched.  However, after one indoor match and today's practice, I'm pretty confident that the racker is reduced to just jewelry.  

 

After getting both guns really dialed in using a benchrest, I spent some time doing wide transition drills to see how the dot compared to the old C-More.  First off, I was relieved to find that at outdoor intensity the dot was nice and clear.  As clear as these eyes can make it anyways.

I found that the dot track is very fast, but consistent.  I can't quite tell if it's the same shape every time because it seemed to move too fast to really watch.  Also, it's not just straight up and down, but it's clearly within the A-C zone.  I also seem to benefit more dramatically from a stronger grip with this sight than with the C-More.  What I mean is... the effect on grip intensity seems to have less of an affect on the C-More than with the DPP.  As long as I was gripping it firmly it seems that I could get into the .18 split zone and maintain the dot track much better.  If I loosened up too much it seemed that it started getting quite large and less consistent in the glass.  I suppose that's just a general rule, but the C-More seemed to remain more "watchable" throughout the spectrum. 

The thing about that is, the dot track always stayed within the glass.  So even though it's a smaller glass, if the dot stays within it throughout the shooting... well, that's got to be more accurate right?

So, I'm not sure if it's the weight, mounting point, dot sharpness, or what but all I know is that this gun is quite different than it was before.

 

Now that I said all that, it's really all of it together.  This setup has been thrown for a loop and I'm confident, given my current ability that's it's just what I needed to really buckle down on my accuracy.

 

   

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I shot my first outdoor match with the new DPP setup this Sunday at Aurora Gun Club.  It was a pretty sweet day for the most part, but the wind picked up toward the end and that sucked.  

I started off pretty strong with a nice speed shoot that went very well.  I "easily" held the dot in the alpha zone and went 1 for 1 on some mini poppers so my confidence was boosted in the new sight setup from the start.  The next stage was the classifier.  It was Front Sight, so wide transitions on open targets seemed very fitting since that's what I did the day before.  I had to dot hunt for the first time with this sight setup to start with.  Then, I was transitioning very aggressively on string 2 and let one fly just as brown target entered the glass.  Clearly, the dot had been off the target and I fired a makeup shot.  That's a Virginia count stage so although I made up the mike with an alpha, the damage was still significant.  

From an execution standpoint the day didn't get any better.  I had some significant problems while moving.  I slipped 3 times and one of the times when I recovered my grip was so poor on the gun that I dropped my magazine.  Then, the gun malfunctioned with the makeup mag.  This was a total hoser stage so I dropped 18 places on that screw up alone.  

The main concern I have with that train wreck is that the gun malfunctioned.  This was the first match with a new slide as well as the new sight. I'll make sure this gun get's a lot of action in the next few weeks to see if that was a fluke or not. 

 

From the new sight perspective the match was a total success.  I'm completely in love with the new setup and dropped a single delta all day.  I also shot a total of maybe 3 makeup shots.  These sights are tracking like a boss, and I really think there is something to my "smaller glass = more accurate" comment I made on my last post.  Even if that's a bunch of horse shit it's making a difference to me.

If I can continue to increase accuracy, and stop sliding all over hell I think I can increase my overall performance.  

 

Speaking of sliding all over hell, I'm thinking about trying a set of football cleats or other type of cleat with a much more aggressive tread.  The current trail running shoe wears too quickly and just isn't that great when the dirt gets about 3-4" of soft depth.   

 

 

Edited by Glock26Toter
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Well, I was only able to get one match in this weekend.  The weather crapped out on Saturday, but Sunday held out nicely for a match at Pueblo West Sportsman's club.  

 

During the week I had purchased a pair of Under Armor baseball cleats.  I decided on baseball cleats because the "cleaty" parts look to me like they are designed for sideways stability rather than forward stability like the football ones.  Soccer cleats were a no-go. The soccer cleats were super stiff on the sole and even the most rubbery "cleaty parts" were way harder than the baseball cleat causing them to get zero traction on the stores flooring.  These baseball cleats appear to have decent traction on concrete/wood/flooring.  They are also a high-top design which I like because low shoes wind up with a lot of sand and rocks in them by the end of the day.  Not to mention the ankle support.  

So, I wore them all day Sunday and really liked the traction and comfort.  With Solomon shoes me feet are sore by the end of the day, but these were comfortable all day without issue.  I'm very happy with them so far.   

 

With respect to the shooting... well not so much.  I pulled some serious stupid shit out of my hat for the match and I'm actually not going to analyze it too much and pretty much just take is as a bad day.  I never really felt it, from the get-go.  Evidence of this was on the classifier.  I was like "since I'm not feeling too ballsy I'm going to take the conservative head shots and not risk shooting the stage like it's supposed be shot."  I paid the price with 3, yes 3 mikes.  

 

I think the real issue is that the honeymoon is over with that new DPP sight and I reverted back to shooting it just like the C-More.  It's not the same and although it can be better it requires a few changes and considerable more dot-time before I can really get a good handle on it.  I can't quite call it for sure, but likely my grip loosened up and took that new track to mean I can just put the shaky dot somewhere on brown and pull the trigger.  

 

I need to get out to the practice range and really work on learning/watching the tracking.  If I can't get to the point where I can easily stay on it, then maybe experiment with some new springs or a different mount.  I need to re-gain confidence and understanding what I'm seeing in the sight so I can get back to work on my chief goal of getting the hell off the target once that last shot is called.  

 

Goals moving forward:

Get some more practice time looking through that sight.

Wait for the shot you want. Call it, and be done.  (this is going to take MORE rework)

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive and wide transitions.

Optimize each position and movement in your stage plan.

 

 

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The Colorado weather gave us a taste of summer and a full weekend of shooting... plus lots of learning.  

 

On Saturday I made it out to the Ben Lomond Gun Club for Cha-Lee's match.  I made some colossal mistakes that led to some additional changes to my gun.

 

I'm finally able to really see this dot and keep track of it's path.  Maybe I just have like "slow eyes" or something but seems that many times the finer dot tracking it hard for me grasp.  It has taken me 3 matches to be able to really see what's going on with this sight. I have no idea if other people have this issue or not, but I seem to take quite a while to notice any changes really, but especially things that affect my dot track. 

At any rate, this weekend was the clearest I've had to date figuring out the dot track and I now realize that this sight has affected the gun in all aspects.   

This reminds me of the time I was comparing the two different comps I had for a while.  One of them I could easily see that the dot track was up and down, and the other one was giving it quite a bit of wobble.  

On the classifier, I was just flat unable to keep the dot tracking up and down and it was "down the middle."  Wobbly side to side tracking and my attempt at hauling ass made for a 4 mike run.  I ran it again for no score and still wound up with 3 mikes.  But I did confirm that I was fighting to correct this side action.

The next stage I dropped my magazine.  This was the third inadvertent mag drop since getting the new sight setup.  Clearly, I've also lost consistency in my grip with the change of structure on the left side of the gun.  I realized that I had been using the C-More mount as a thumb rest.  I knew I had been doing that but didn't think it was a anchor that I would miss.  I was wrong.  

 

I went home and forgot all about it and started clearing off some shelves above my reloading bench for a home improvement project.  (patching some sheetrock on the wall that my bench sits against.)  As I pulled down a little bin with misc "match winnings" in it I found... a GoGun *thumb rest [generic]*!  Engraved with "Area 1 2015" it was just what I needed.  YAY!

After a quick coat of mud on the wall, I installed the *thumb rest [generic]* and removed the magazine release extension.  I basically don't use it, but for some reason have been leaving it on. 


So, Sunday I went to the Weld County Fish and Wildlife range for another match and to try out my new setup.  It seems that my thumb does naturally fall onto the *thumb rest [generic]* and with a bit more consistency on the grip I didn't notice any difficulty keeping the dot on target.  Again, old slow eyes here can't really say if the dot was tracking exactly up and down but it seemed to be much easier to control and with some practice I think the *thumb rest [generic]* is exactly what I need.  I have it forward enough that I just touch it and don't put a lot of pressure on it but it also helps to guide my support hand pretty far forward on the gun.  This creates a little "Bob Vogel" space between my palms that I like.  I've tried to adopt in the past and have not been successful.  Maybe this will be the ticket.  

Reviewing the video the two POV stages show that I still lack a bit of consistency but I am using the *thumb rest [generic]*.  On the field course I can see that my support hand is farther back and the steel was missed several times along with some hesitation on a few paper targets while waiting for the dot.  

On the classifier I had some holster issues, but when the shooting is happening I can see that my support hand is quite a bit farther forward and I'm landing 100% on the *thumb rest [generic]*.  This dot was much more controllable and I actually wound up with some very good hits on it.  Three charlies and one delta during one handed shooting but believe I had all alphas during the freestyle portions.  This reinforces my initial thoughts about the *thumb rest [generic]* having potential to add consistency and get my Bob Vogel grip working. 

 

While I had other things that were not tip-top performance I can say that the shooting seemed much better, and the reloads without the mag button were smooth and I didn't notice a thing from that perspective.  I definitely need to get to the practice range and start to really work this in.  Testing, tuning and adjustments like I've done the last 2 weeks are not supposed to be done at matches and I'm certainly paying the price by slow progress and a lack of understanding of exactly how each thing affects the shooting.  

 

Goals moving forward: 

Get some more practice time.  (need to work the new grip and learn how it affects the dot)

Drive yourself away and into the next transition.

Be confident on the aggressive and wide transitions.

 

 

 

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Well, it was a weekend of hard lessons for me.
More experimentation with the old thumb rest has led me to believe that I may be barking up the wrong tree.

 

I went to a match at Aurora Gun Club on Saturday.  It turned out to be a great day and my jacket was ditched by the time the shooting started.
I found that I was very conscious of differing levels of pressure on the thumb rest.  When I was shooting fast, the pressure would increase considerably on the rest and cause the dot to get really crazy.  At one point, I was pretty sure that the dot was moving side to side and not up and down.  This made for some pretty crappy shooting on steel. After a dismal day of shooting I went home and decided I better get this thumb rest thing figured out.

The following day I headed out to the range with Cha-Lee.  I experimented with both guns.  One of them I had the rest on, and the other one had nothing.  


Basically, after trying several configuration of the rest, I figured out that any forward pressure was very inconsistent and didn't appear to help the dot track up and down.  I found the best configuration to be upside down.  The upside down mounted rest only extended the screw portion of the rest and this closely matches the thickness and location of the old C-More mount.   I'll give it another go after severely modifying the thumb rest as pictured below.  This is really now, an index point for almost all sideways pressure.  After reviewing pics of myself shooting with the old C-More this way more closely matches how that mount affected my thumb pressure.
Capture.thumb.JPG.8defb402273deb9dac83cb9b256241e3.JPG

 

However, after a bit if discussion with Cha-Lee, he showed me that I can make a better improvement through spring/FP stop tuning than with a thumb rest.  

 

With this in mind and considerable help from Cha-Lee we landed on a combo that I'll use as a baseline to do some additional testing.  I can throw the thumb rest situation back in once I have the gun tuned exactly the way I want without it.  

 

I took the gun with the new springs. (small radius FP Stop, 20# hammer spring, 8lb recoil spring) to Centennial Gun Club on Sunday night.  
While it was a total disaster from a shooting perspective I got some good dot watching time in and feel that it was at least as consistent as I had seen at the range earlier that day.   The dot, while still not tracking up and down was at least remaining in the glass and I don't feel like my grip was pushing it all over.  This is another case of old "slow eyes" needing to put more rounds downrange to decide what I'm seeing so I can make a decision on what to do next.  

 

Meantime, I've ordered a bunch of different springs and will continue my experimentation to see if I can tune the gun for a dot track that I can be happy with.   

 

Thanks for the help Cha-Lee!

 

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The weather this weekend was a major score.  On Sunday I was able make the Aurora Gun Club match, and by the time we started shooting the coat was off!  

I didn't have a lot of focus on anything but watching the dot.  None of my gun parts had come in yet, so the gun was exactly the same as the previous week.  Probably a good thing so I could get some real, outdoor action with the current setup.

 

While shooting, I found that dot seemed to be easier to follow and didn't have much in the way of random side-side wobble.  I would hesitate to say it approached the level of consistency that the old C-More had, but I was able to aim and made a considerable increase in my overall accuracy. 

The only mike I had was on the classifier.  I was in a super aggressive transition mode, and just let myself put the transition before the shot and drifted it off to the right side.  In a confused state, two targets later, I thought I pulled another mike and made it up instantly.  This caused an additional extra shot/extra hit combo that drove my score into something like a .2 HF.  Ooops.

 

Back to the main goal, I was one for one on all steel that day, and only a single delta.  There were definitely two highlights that spell out some progress on dot tracking. 

One, was on a stage where you had to shoot some close-up stuff, and then run into some squat level ports for quite a bit of aiming.  While in the port I was aware of having to break my arm extension considerably.  Especially for a tilted zebra target that was way over to the left.  My left arm was bent at what seemed 45 degrees at the elbow.  I became aware that was gripping very hard with my support hand to keep the dot tracking consistently.   This is a good thing as I was finally able to "remember" to grip hard to keep the gun moving the way I wanted.  This, changing up the shooting, or handling during an engagement is something I've struggled with for a long time and I'm happy to finally report a bit of progress on this goal.

 

The other stage was from our famous "city builder" stage design guy.  There was some decently awkward shooting before running down a 16' hallway into an open area of super wide transitioning.  This spread out array has very low on risk (no, no shoots) and definitely called for shooting on the move.  However, I missed my reload button while launching out of the previous awkward position.  This led to a delayed reload and by the time I got ready to shoot I was at the end of the hall.  I entered loose shooting mode and just mowed down the array.  The bad news is, I allowed myself to get in make up mode, and just shoot brown causing almost all charlies (and one delta).  The good news is, while in that mode I was able to watch the dot enough that all those shots were called and the gun was handled with a very strong grip from both hands.  I felt like I hadn't seen the dot, but upon reflection it was like "I was seeing the dot, just not much of it."  Allowing C shots as "good enough" is not something I look at as the victory here.  Considering the trouble I've been having, controlling the gun and seeing the dot track well during that crazy engagement is the victory.    

 

So, I should have my springs and be able to get some more testing in within the next couple of days.  I'm going to miss all matches this coming weekend as I'm off to Florida through the weekend.  This time, no shooting... only house hunting!  

 

Yes, I'm planning on moving to the Fort Myers area and this next trip down will be to look around the Pine Island, Cape Coral, and Fort Myers areas.  

I've lived in Colorado my whole life and always wanted to live in a climate without winter.  It was never something I viewed as possible until I realized that my job can be done from anywhere and with the CEO's blessing I'm heading to Fort Myers for a new chapter in my life.   

 

  

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The thing that a lot of people don't quite understand is that using a thumb rest is a different type of grip than the left wrist cammed forward type of grip.  What further complicates the matter is that the pad on different brands of thumb rests come in all different positions. Some have the pad pretty far forward near where the thumb would normally be with a left hand cammed forward grip.  It seems like people that use thumb rests with the pad far forward toward the muzzle end, are using more of the left wrist cammed forward grip or a sort of hybrid of the two.

 

The Gogun has the pad pretty far to the rear and is meant to be used with an opposable grip.  If one tries to cam the left wrist forward and put pressure on the thumb rest, the dot gets all sorts of crazy.  It takes a bit of trigger time and dot watching in practice to figure out how much pressure it takes, but I am realizing it's not very much pressure at all.  I'm still figuring it out but am getting closer.  For me, the opposable grip seems more natural, comfortable, faster and I get less muzzle lift.

 

 

 

 

Edited by d_striker
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  • 2 weeks later...

It's been quite a couple of weeks.  I had jury duty on Wednesday (April 5th) and was not picked.  They were kind to me and just dismissed me since I was scheduled to go to Florida the following day.  With the day already done from a work perspective I took off to the practice range.  I fiddled with different spring combinations and watched many slow-mo videos of each spring.  I could not tell any difference in recoil springs with what I tried, but thought I could see subtle differences in the hammer springs.  

I tried 7,8 lb standard springs and 7, 9 lb variable springs. I watched the videos over and over again and just can't see a difference between variable and standard springs.  This probably has to due with both the reduced weight and frame length of my gun.  I thought I could see slight difference between the 7 and 8 lbs and it was only a slight dip upon closing with the 8.  So, back to the 7 lb for me. 

Regarding hammer springs I felt that I could see a difference on those and although very slight for what I was testing I settled on the 22lb spring.  

After watching a ton of slow-mo vids, the largest difference in recoil control I could see was grip.  If I shot more than two rounds consecutively the muzzle flip became very consistent and hard to see any difference between any of the springs.  During single shots, I saw more muzzle flip and more difference between the springs.  

This leads me to think that the slow-mo video test is not as reliable as I would like... at least not with me holding the gun.  I think some way to put the gun in a vise, or something to remove the human element would really be a great way to test springs.  Of course there's also the "what feels right" factor.    

The conclusion:  I found a spring combo to run with for a bit.  I need to get more rounds down range and just give it time.

 

So, the following day I jetted off to Florida for 6 days days of neighborhood shopping.  Eventually we were led to a little place called Warm Springs.  It's basically a suburb of Port Charlotte and puts my wife 30 minutes from Sarasota where the art scene is just what she needs.  It also puts me 30 minutes from the Hansen range outside of Fort Myers, and about 1 hour (and change) from 4 additional USPSA hosting ranges.  This includes Universal Shootings Academy.  There a tons of other ranges within a reasonable distance so I think this location will meet all of our goals.  To boot, my wife was asked to be in an art gallery in Naples.  This led to some good feelings about the move.... it's a very rare situation for such a high-end gallery to approach an artist.  This might be equivalent to the day a movie star gets asked to do a role rather than having to audition.  This is awesome for her career and is one step closer to my becoming the "full time shooter husband of a world famous artist!" HAHA! 

 

So back home for one night's stay and I was in Seattle WA for the remainder of the week.  I got back at 12:30AM Saturday morning and packed up for a local match at Ben Lomond gun club.  

The match was a lesson in frustration.  I don't know if it was because I was pretty wiped from an aggressive travel schedule or if I'm reaching critical mass with these sights.  

I felt constant frustration with an unpredictable dot track and on several occasions spent what seemed like an eternity hunting for the dot.  I did OK as far as accuracy with only 1 mike and a couple of deltas for the match, but some of those hits were at a considerable time cost.  I mean, on the classifier I hunted for the dot for over 2 seconds. 

A friend of mine had to pull me out of the ditch and remind me that I'm the one always teaching to find the positive and forget about the mistakes.

In an effort to do just that, I'll review my 2 good runs(one for score).  It was a stage with lots of movement and some steel that kind of needed to be shot on the move.  This led to a port about 30 feet downrange with 4 poppers and some paper.  I shot it the first time and had 1 make up on the back steel, but felt very good about the movement and on the front 4 poppers mowed them down 1 for 1.  It was a run that felt good for sure.  The nook freaked out during scoring so it required a reshoot.  I was almost out of ammo and went in with only 2 mags on my belt.  This time I went one for one on the back two steels and obtained much more movement during the engagement so I was ahead of my first time heading out of that position.  I then missed twice on the front steel so the net was maybe .2 slower than the first run, but I was able to call it "2 good runs" for the mach.  Overall it felt good to get a couple right after a rough match AND to blow through the "reshoot curse" unscathed. 

 

So now.  What to do about these DPP sights. 

I'm allowing myself to get very frustrated with them and find myself at a crossroads.  Do I continue to power through or do I go back to C-Mores?

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself and the tracking issues I'm experiencing are no worse than the C-More but I'm putting an expectation that it should be better. 

Maybe I'm just not allowing myself enough trigger time with the new sights.  The gun is considerably different with the two setups, but is it worse?

Here's what I'm thinking for moving forward. 

 

Now that spring has sprung... well maybe only 4 more freaking blizzards left this year... I'll commit to a practice session every Wednesday.  

Give myself a break and allow another 6 matches, coupled with practice sessions to see if this get's any better.

If I continue to be frustrated, I'll switch to that modified thumb rest and give it another 3-4 matches with practice and see if that helps.

This should put me in the Mid May time frame.  If I'm still bent out of shape by then it will be time to switch back.

 

Meantime I'm going to stop putting a negative spin on this setup and on my performance.  I'll find the positives and note when the dot does track well rather than when it doesn't.  

 

I've never changed my setup this drastically and this may be just a lesson in how to hone my skills enough that an equipment change doesn't throw me off so bad.  The really good shooters can pick up any gun handed to them and commence to hand our assess to us on a regular basis.   

 

 

 

 

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In switching to the DPP, I had mega frustration with the dot hunting.  I am now using a RTS2 and it is a non issue.  What I found was that the 1 or 2 MM difference in the top of the glass being reduced from not being round glass like the CMore is where the dot landed when I had any inconsistency in grip, draw, etc.  Basically if my index was off at all the dot is gone for me on the DPP, but with the RTS2 the same situation, the dot is right at the top of the glass.

 

In either situation, it's an error on my part and should be solved with practice but switching to the RTS2 solved it in the meantime without the same level of frustration and dot hunting.

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I wonder if you are moving your head a little on the draw. With the lens on the C-more you would still be able to see the dot if your moved your head, but the smaller lens of the DPP is less forgiving. It might be worth reviewing your videos in slo-mo to see if this is happening on your draw.

 

Or maybe that enormous hat is pushing your head downB)

Edited by BritinUSA
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Switching from a sideways C-More to an upright DPP is just enough bore to sight offset difference to cause indexing issues. You have to mount the DPP setup in a different location in front of your face or you are not going to see the dot in the glass. Relearning the proper mounting position of the gun is going to take a metric shit ton of dry fire to fix.

 

I am running into our same issue of not seeing the dot in the glass on the draw when I switch from Limited to Open using the DPP due to this different gun mounting position. When I am shooting Open I have found that I need to smooth out and slow down the final portion of the draw in order to present the gun in a way that has the dot is somewhere within the glass. The funky thing about this for me is that this issue only happens on the draw. Once I mount the gun and find the dot I don't have any problems with keeping it in the glass during shooting, wide transitions or even when dismounting / remounting the gun while running between positions.

 

Granted, I had zero dot hunting issues when I was using a sideways C-More because the offset was very similar to a Limited Iron Sight setup. But there was a SIGNIFICANT disadvantage when it came to making right to left transitions because the C-More was blocking the next target to the left. I know for a fact that once I find the dot on the DPP setup I can shoot it better than the sideways C-More simply because the sight its self does not obstruct my view of targets.

 

You are going to fix this indexing thing in Dry Fire primarily. One really good way to test your bodies natural tenancy in mounting the gun in a specific position is to draw to a target with your eyes closed then open them after the gun is mounted to see if the dot is in the glass or not. This type of testing isn't going to "Fix" your mounting position issue, but it will at least allow you to assess if the issue is in fact fixed.

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Along with what cha said is the issue for me wasn't really much of a problem for a straight standing draw but rather any draw that had combined the draw with movement, i.e. Almost every draw in a match except classifiers.  Like he said it's really only an issue of finding the dot on the first target but mega frustrating when you can't find it

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  • 2 weeks later...

So, I was able to cut out of work early and get to the range today.  I had some Chrono work to do as well as some more work on the old dot track issue I've been having.

 

I was sick as hell since Wednesday of last week so not only did I miss my practice day, I boned out on matches this weekend as well as any practice. It sucked and I still have some lingering affects, but I'm finally better.  

At some point, maybe Tuesday night I did a bunch of dry fire and found that I have developed a habit of canting the gun forward when coming into a draw from an awkward position or aggressively into a position.  This causes the dot to drop below the glass... something that probably was not an issue with the lower indexed C-More.  A bit of an aha moment and something worth working on for sure.  I noticed that this was only when I have a very firm support hand grip.  Another thing I've been working on, so I believe I've introduced this with my recent goal of increasing that grip. 

 

Anyways, when I headed out to the range today, after the technical work I did a few drills where I came into a draw while leaning aggressively as well as from several movement positions.  Sure enough, when I had a noticeably increased grip on my support hand the dot would have to be brought UP into the glass before I could get going.  The good news is that when I maintain that firm weak hand grip the dot travels in an almost straight up and down path.  While it has a distinct "forward slash" angle... maybe slightly less, but about that much angle '  /  '   

While it will be necessary to straighten that out, at least I was happy with making it predictable.  I'm hoping that with more practice I can learn to control this dot through simply increasing my grip pressure.  Meanwhile, if that's the case I also better get to more dry fire to work out that damn forward tilt issue. 

 

Pretty much exactly what my friends said... thanks guys.  Well, except for the one idea about my cowboy hat holding my head down.  HAHA!

 

For my final note, I tested this with slight pressure on the gun that still has the hacked up thumb rest on it.  I saw no difference.  Knowing that a lot of pressure on the thumb rest only makes things worse, I'm going to remove it tonight and move forward with no thumb rest, and two goals. 

 

Goals: 

Continue increased grip pressure.. straighten that dot out!

Include at least 2 nights per week dry fire.. work out the forward cant issue. 

 

 

 

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Well, a few more days of the crud and I'm getting back into the swing of things.  

I managed to dry fire twice last week, and although very brief due to the crud I did manage to confirm that I'm still fighting that dot situation.  

 

On Sunday I received my new Eggleston Munitions bullets.  I loaded a few up and headed out to the range with Cha-Lee to get them tested.  Yikes... for that particular load and my gun, the results were not pretty.  I was only able to get about an 6" group at  around 10 yards, on a rest.   Back to my old load with PD's for a contrast and I easily kept all the rounds inside a paster.  The loads were only about 163 PF, and a small sample of some hotter loads of Cha-Lee's resulted in accuracy of about 3" groups free-hand.  I'm hoping that once I kick these loads into high-gear I'll have something I can shoot.

Also, I was using Autocomp and will test again with 172PF and contrast AC and HS6 next time.  

 

Later that night I made the match at Centennial.  I try not to get too excited about that match and still call it the "80% match."  Last night was no different.  

 

I had some moments of very reasonable dot tracking which means I'm making progress on that goal.  I like that.  

I also had to dot hunt for maybe 1/2 of the draws.  Not good, but they were fairly brief as I now know it's consistently below the glass.  I think I'm making progress on that. 

I almost fell twice, but managed to stay on my feet.. so there's that too. 

 

All and all, it was full of the usual mistakes for me and a reminder that I have a long way to go in both dry fire and practice before I can start smoothing things out.  

 

Goals: 

Continue increased grip pressure.. straighten that dot out!

Include at least 2 nights per week dry fire.. work out the forward cant issue.  In California all week... so won't make this :-(

 

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I was able to shoot one match at Aurora Gun Club this weekend.  The weather turned out great as it was overcast and not too hot almost all day.  

From a shooting perspective it was the usual disappointment in the DPP performance with the dot tracking.  I only had one decent run where I had a death grip on the gun and was able to call all my shots and move through the stage with good shooting.  I still missed the reload.  I missed almost all the reloads that day.  I'm now I'm starting to pay the price for removing my mag release extension on a pretty consistent basis.  

After more dry fire, and more disappointment at my match performance I've decided to go back on my DPP installation on at least one gun.  I've lined up a purchase of a C-More mount from a buddy, and have managed to get my C-More sights back without losing any money.  

 

I'll mount the C-More and mag release extension back on one of the guns and begin at least comparing the two on a better test basis than I started with.  

 

This will help me determine if the C-More is just the best setup for my particular equipment and ability or if I'm just plain in a slump currently.

 

I suspect that the balance of the gun and built in thumb rest are something that I was way more reliant on than I realized.  Sticking with my "old" setup until I'm ready for a "new gun" might be the wise path.  Maybe it will be a whole new gun in the future?  I don't know.

 

What I do know, is that my enjoyment of the sport has been tainted by the level of frustration I feel now, and that's a spot that I don't wish to be in. I need to figure out whether it's me, or the equipment and the only way to do that, is to go back and see.  

 

 

  

 

 

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I know it's more cash to outlay but try the Rts2 or Romeo sight.  I struggled with the shape of the dpp glass and finding the dot but the round shape of rts2 is just like the slideride and don't have issues

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Thank you for the suggestion.  I may investigate that down the road, but it's not the dot leaving the glass or view that's troubling me.  It's tracking and grip change due to the different mount or index... I think. 

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I was talking with Charlie about this issue this weekend.  I was saying that now with two different guns, one with RTS2 and one with DPP, I said that the shorty dot "explodes" vs tracks up and down on my heavier mid length gun.  He said that the biggest thing he noticed on this was where the dot was mounted (front to back) on the gun and that different mounts had different locations.  I forget if you were using the vertical or setback CMore mount but whichever it was that you liked, try to find a DPP mount that locates the glass in the same location and the dot should track the same as long as all else is constant.  You'd also want to go back to the same springs and FPS as well as thumbrest to make it an equal comparison.  

I'll be doing the same as I'm currently dealing with it as opposed to loving it!

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I put one of my guns back today.  C-More with Cheely forward mount.  I went to the range to sight it in and got it all zeroed.  

Once I started firing very quickly, with a firm grip I was easily able to keep the dot tracking in a consistent vertical path.  The entire thing feels like a different gun and with a good strong grip I could transition aggressively and call shots while watching a predictable vertical path in the glass.

 

Only a quick practice session, but it sure feels better to be back on to familiar ground. 

 

I also decided to test the Eggleston bullets with the new load so I ran some "through" the Chrony with mixed results.  

 

The good news is, I missed it enough times to verify a 170 PF.  The bad news is two fold.

1. My trusty Chrony has gone to that big shooting range in the sky.

2. The Egg's are still super inaccurate, with no noticeable improvement from the first time shooting them.  

 

I'm actually going to pack them away and just concentrate on making it through the next few major matches and life changes for now.  At some point in the future I'll get back to testing with HS-6 to see if there's any hope of shooting cool green bullets.

 

Hopefully tomorrow will be a good day with my old gun back.... and maybe I'll find a great deal on a brand new chronograph.

 

chronyhole.jpg

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